Robert Wilson - Julian Comstock - A Story of 22-nd Century America

“Some, but mostly not. The eastern cities are not Estates, with a tightly-controlled leasing class. The business of the city requires artisans and laborers to be able to move freely between various jobs, and managers and petty owners can negotiate loans and establish factories or shops as they please, and profit from them. The cumulative effect is a population some of whom are prosperous enough to dress extravagantly―at least at Easter―even though they aren’t propertied in the full sense of that word.”

“Hasn’t the war harmed the city?”

“It’s been a mixed blessing, I gather. In the recent past the city has been exclusively in American hands, and the presence of garrisoned troops has created an economic boom, along with a bumper crop of larceny and vice. Look there, Adam, that should impress you―I believe that’s the cathedral in which we’re supposed to worship.”

After this sarcastic comment I could not admit how astonished I truly was, though Julian laughed once more at my gawking. We had come up a low rise and around a corner into the neighborhood of a huge church. It was the largest I had ever seen―not the largest church but the largest thing I had ever seen, meaning a man-made thing and not an act of nature. [Railroad bridges aside. But even the airy trestle at Connaught, which crosses the River Pine, might have fit inside this cathedral, if properly folded.]

Its spires were tall enough to snag clouds, and I could hardly catch my breath as we marched under its shadow and through the enormous and ornate wooden doors. We paused in the dimness of the foyer, under the direction of Major Lampret, and took off our caps and stuffed them in our pockets, out of respect. Then we passed through a second set of doors into the body of the “cathedral,” as Julian called it, which was like the Dominion Hall back in Williams Ford, if the Dominion Hall had been inflated to monstrous size, its modest walls exchanged for vaulted granite, and its woodwork shaped and polished by an army of imaginative and slightly mad carpenters. Everywhere, in every direction, was filigree, down to the finest scale, and alcoves and cubbies in which more filigree was on display, and candles more numerous than stars in the sky, creating a miasmic odor of smoky wax, and above all this were several great Stained Glass Windows, as tall as the pines of Athabaska, illustrating ecclesiastical themes, and of sun-shot colors so radiant as to seem Edenic.

There was some awed commentary among the troops, few of whom had ever been inside a Cathedral, and several of the men hooted loudly in order to hear their voices come echoing back from the high arched ceiling, until Major Lampret cuffed them into a respectful silence. Then we took our places in the pews.

“Does it gall you,” I whispered to Sam, “to be in such a place for a Christian religious service?”

“I was raised by Christians after the death of my true parents,” he reminded me, “and I’ve been inside many churches on many Easters, and on other occasions too, and I try to conduct myself as a well-mannered guest, if not a genuine devotee. Now be quiet, Adam Hazzard, and listen to the singing.”

As it happened, we were stationed near the choir. At first the choir seemed only a vague crowd dressed all in white. Then, as my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I realized the choristers were female, and most of them young, and I am ashamed to say that I was pleased by that discovery, for the city women possessed a beauty just as striking (it seemed to me right then) as all the stained glass saints and marble martyrs in Christendom.

Skeptics will put that down to the deprivations of Army life―and there is, of course, some truth to that―but I am convinced there was also an element of Destiny in my fascination, for standing in the front rank of the choir was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

I won’t attempt to set down here the emotions this anonymous woman stirred in me, for the superlatives would embarrass the mature writer. Summoning all my powers of objectivity, then, this is what I saw: a short female person of approximately my own age, in a cloud-white surplice, her body what some might call stout and others would call healthy ; with a pink and radiant face, and large eyes whose color I could not at this distance discern, although I imagined them (correctly, as it turned out) to be a handsome chestnut-brown; and a crown of hair that coiled like a vast collation of ebony springs, the light behind her making a spectacular Halo of it. If she noticed me staring at her, she showed no sign.

I could not distinguish her voice from the voices of the other female choristers, but I was sure it was at least as pure and angelic as the rest. They sang a hymn that was unfamiliar to me, with references to the Fortress of Virtue, the Armory of Faith, and other metaphorical architecture. Then―unhappily, for I was transported by the sound―the singing stopped, and Major Lampret himself stepped up to the pulpit. All eyes were suddenly on him, including those of the choir, and I found myself resenting the trim figure he cut in his Dominion uniform, its angel-wing breast pin glinting in the multicolored light.

Major Lampret, employing his parade-ground voice so as to reach the back pews, explained that the Cathedral, though nominally a Catholic church, had agreed to allow its premises to be used for nondenominational Christian services, Dominion-contrived and Dominion-approved, for the spiritual benefit of such divisions as the Army could spare from duty at the front. He thanked the local clergy for their generosity; then he admonished us all to keep silent, and refrain from eating any food we might have concealed about ourselves, and not to interrupt the service with cries of “That’s so!” or “Go on!” or other vulgar ejaculations, nor to clap and whistle at the end of the sermon, but rather to sit tight and think of Redemption.

Then a local clergyman―a priest, I suppose, for Catholic clergy are so called―mounted the podium and began to read the sermon that had been prepared for him by the Dominion scholars. The lesson bid fair to be a long one―it began with palm leaves, and promised a leisurely route to the Resurrection (which for me was the highlight of the story, for I had always enjoyed picturing the astonishment of observers at the discovery of the Empty Tomb)―and the clergyman had mastered that peculiar ecclesiastical drone which, in combination with the heat, and the fatigue of the march, and the smoky air, caused more than a few nodding heads among his temporary parishioners. Julian, sitting next to me, seemed deeply attentive, but I knew better than to believe the appearance, for Julian had once told me what he did during church services (an Atheist being as much a foreigner in church as a Jew): he passed the time, he said, by imagining the movie he would one day make, The Life and Adventures of the Great Naturalist Charles Darwin, rehearsing in his mind the individual scenes, and the dialogue, and how he might decorate the sets, or work out the plot for maximum drama.

I fought off my own drowsiness by occasionally glancing back at the choir, where the woman who had captivated me stood patiently. She betrayed no boredom with the sermon, though she occasionally cast a glance heavenward, more in exasperation (it seemed) than in prayer, and twice raised her left foot to scratch the calf of her right leg. As the day grew warmer a bead of sweat formed on her forehead and trickled down her cheek, absorbing and reflecting the colorful light. It fascinated me.

An hour passed. The clergyman was halfway through his oration (or so I deduced, since we had got past Judas and were about to embark on the nasty business with Pontius Pilate) when there was a distant crack as of thunder, followed by a low rumbling that traveled up the wooden pews and into our spines. This caused some muttering in the ranks; but the priest carried on regardless, and Sam whispered, “Artillery fire―no danger to us; the Dutch don’t have a cannon capable of reaching Montreal from their trenches.”